Harris County defends decision to bar Korean translators from Spring Branch polling site

Volunteers on Sunday held a sign that translates "Korean language available, at early voting location in west Houston.

Photo: Courtesy photo/Dona Kim Murphey

The Harris County Clerk’s office on Monday defended a decision by election workers to bar translators offering assistance to Korean-American voters from a Spring Branch polling site the day before.

The county said translators are free to approach voters outside the 100-foot protected zone at each polling place, but Dona Kim Murphey of the Korean-American Association of Houston said Harris County is too strict in its interpretation of the Texas Election Code.

“Nowhere does it say we can’t offer that translation at the entrance of the facility,” Murphey said. “That is unacceptable.”

Local Korean-language outlets urged voters to cast ballots at the Trini Mendenhall Community Center on Sunday because translators, including Murphey, would be there to provide assistance. She said poll workers barred the group of translators from asking Korean speakers in line if they needed help.

The translators were permitted to approach voters in the parking lot, but Murphey estimated they were only able to help 40 to 50 Korean speakers instead of the hundreds they had planned. Several thousand Korean-Americans reside in Spring Branch, and more than 30,000 live in the Houston area.

Douglas Ray, a deputy in the Harris County Attorney’s Office, said the translators were considered loiterers under the Texas Election Code when they were inside the polling place, because they lacked a “legitimate business purpose” for being there. The code bars loitering and electioneering — advocating for a particular cause or candidate — within the 100-foot protection zone.

Harris County offers ballots in four languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese. The clerk’s office places Spanish interpreters at each voting location and Vietnamese and Chinese speakers in neighborhoods where they are most likely to be needed. U.S. Census data in 2015 revealed at least 145 languages are spoken in the Houston area, including thousands of residents who speak Hindi, Urdu, Korean and a variety of African languages.

Voters are permitted to bring translators for assistance, so long as they swear an oath to translate accurately. Ray said the problem arose Sunday because the translators were asking voters if they needed help, instead of the other way around. Though journalists and exit pollsters are permitted to speak to voters waiting in line, with the permission of poll workers, Ray said translators offering help are prohibited.

Ray said translators are free to offer their services to voters at any point before they enter the 100-foot zone.

“We just don’t want them to solicit inside the polling place,” he said.

Sam Taylor, spokesman for the Texas secretary of state’s office, said the election code supports Harris County’s rationale because a translator who has yet to be requested by a voter does not meet the description of an authorized person who is permitted at a polling place.

Hyunja Norman, who helped organize the voter drive Sunday in her role as president of the Korean American Voters League, said she was unsure how many voters were left to fend for themselves after translators were booted outside of the community center. Norman said she spoke with an elderly Korean-American couple who voted without a translater and were unsure if they had selected the correct candidates.

Norman said she apologized to poll workers for misunderstanding the rules, and wants to work closely with the county in the future to prevent another outcome like Sunday.

“We are new Americans. We are learning this process,” she said. “Americans say this is a civic duty. I agree. My people want to do our civic duty.”

Sang Shin, Houston branch president of the nonpartisan Asian American Bar Association, said he worries Korean-American voters will not know where to seek assistance if they slip inside the 100-foot zone without being intercepted by a translator.

“I think that if Harris County is now taking the stance, based on this instance, that they are going to consider the translators as loiterers, the effect of that is going to be unfair,” Shin said.

Regardless of who was right in Spring Branch on Sunday, Shin urged Harris County to contact civic groups in the Korean-American community to clarify the rules for translators at the polls. Shin, who is of Korean descent, said Houston-area residents speak many more languages than the four on the ballot and could benefit from additional outreach.

Zach Despart covers Harris County for the Chronicle, including Commissioners Court and flood control. He came to Houston from the Burlington Free Press in Vermont and was also the managing editor of the Houston Press. In 2017 he won the Best Feature award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for his feature on Venezuelan corruption in Houston and Miami. He is a New York native and graduate of the University of Vermont. Follow him on Twitter or email him at zach.despart@chron.com.